


Everything Old is New Again

by speakpirate



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Emison - Freeform, F/F, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 16:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4355798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakpirate/pseuds/speakpirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how they found their way back to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Old is New Again

This is how they found their way back to each other.

One year after the nightmare of A was finally over, for real, forever. For a long enough time that they could all start to think about normal lives, what they might look like, what it might feel like to walk down the street without their shoulders tense, their eyes darting around corners. It was at this time that Emily came to Alison’s door with a book in her hand.

She brushed Alison’s fingertips as she handed it to her, the feel of her skin against the soft leather cover. “The Count of Monte Cristo,” she smiled. “I read it last week, and it made me think of you.”

Alison smiled, but even her smile seemed tempered with sadness these days. “I bet you say that to all the girls who’ve been presumed dead.”

“I want to read you the ending,” Emily replied.

_“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die...that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living. Live, then, and be happy...and never forget that...all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,—'Wait and hope.'”_

This time it is Alison’s turn to look tentative, to hope this means what she thinks it means. She leans in, strokes Emily’s hair and meets her eyes, her heart in her throat as she leans in. She kisses her right there on her front porch, in broad daylight. Alison thinks, this must be what hope tastes like. Like Emily’s lips pressed against hers, fearless and determined and right.

***

Two years after the end of the erA, Emily finishes her psych midterm early, strolls back to her apartment on the outskirts of the USC campus. She pushes open the door, and sees no sign of Alison. There is a smear of orange juice on the kitchen counter, a carton carelessly overturned nearby. 

Emily pushes down a small spasm of fear. There are no more clues, she reminds herself. These are not signs of a struggle so much as signs of Ali’s general disinterest in housekeeping.

She wipes up the spill with a paper towel, some spray cleaner. Alison is out, she tells herself. She hasn’t disappeared, or been kidnapped, or run away. Their lives these days have the luxury of the mundane - she’s out shopping for a new handbag, or sunning by the pool.

There is a sudden noise of keys in the door, and Alison herself breezes in, a vision of tanned legs beneath a floaty yellow dress, sunglasses atop her head, dark against the hair that is a few shades blonder these days. Her smile at the sight of Emily lights up the room.

This is the part that is still so new and startling, that Alison is here, is real, is hers. She brushes her lips against the back of Emily’s neck, a hand trails along her hip as she comes in, sets down a few grocery bags. There is no manipulation, no long con. Just a new gallon of orange juice, just Alison bending over maybe a little more obviously than she really needs to while putting it away, to give Emily a little thrill.

***

Inevitably, Ezra’s book is optioned for a Lifetime movie of the week. The liars have no interest in watching, not even just to heckle the bad acting. Hanna calls from New York, aghast at the news that Tara Reid is playing her. Spencer is in a medical residency program in Boston, and spends all of her time sleeping or working or tackling DIY projects from pinterest. She might not even have a television. Emily is being played by one of the younger Kardashians, but she has no fucks left to give about it.

Alison checks to make sure she knows when it’s going to premiere, and books two tickets to Paris, for the month. 

They check in with Aria, who has been studying photography over there and has an apartment on the left bank which she insists on calling a flat. It’s so great to see her, even if she does seem to be immersing herself in a nostalgic movie version of Paris, wearing a black beret everywhere, smoking cloves from elaborate cigarette holders. She has her hair cut short, making her look like a tougher version of Audrey Hepburn. Someone who would give Audrey a shove off her bar stool, roll her eyes and tell her to get over herself already. 

One night, after stumbling out of a trendy absinthe bar, where Aria made a sweeping gesture with her arm and declared that she was “done with American men, darling,” Alison asks Emily if she thinks this is true. 

There is a light misty rain, and they are walking across cobblestone streets, their bodies slanting together in the puddles of light from the street lamps. Emily is holding Alison’s hand inside her coat pocket. 

“No,” Emily says, “I think she’s still working it out. Like we all are.”

“They say you never get over your first love,” Alison muses.

Emily smiles softly at at her, bumps her hip lightly, then pushes her against a darkened shop window. 

Her eyes are soft and full of feeling--and Alison knows she is so incredibly lucky that Emily can still look at her like that, like she did when they were fourteen, but even better because there’s not even a hint of insecurity in it, nothing held back, no fearful searching for signs of malice or manipulation or imminent betrayal, only trust and love and heat that is building between their bodies. The moment smells like Emily’s lavender shampoo mixed with the steam of fresh baked bread in the oven of a bakery a few doors down. 

Right before she kisses her, Emily whispers, “I know I never did.”


End file.
